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OPINION

No, Congressman, we report, Trump discredits

What a difference a presidential administration change makes for U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi. He told Greta Van Susteren of MSNBC that DonaldTrump "is not cut a break by anybody," unlike — get this — Barack Obama. Farenthold said the news media and anonymous "folks within government" are "dead set on discrediting President Trump" and that the news media "jumps right on it" when information such as the James Comey memo is leaked.

We don't dispute that the news media jumps right on important breaking news. That's what it has done for generations. A generation ago it was Watergate, which hinged on the information provided by an anonymous source who remained anonymous until long after Richard Nixon was dead. Sometimes the job done by the news media has the residual, incidental effect of saving the country. Often, the job done by the news media reflects poorly on the job done by those who wield the power.

We'd have thought that Farenthold and the other apologists would want to spare the country from the consequences of Trump's presidency thus far — being put at peril with our allies, being used blatantly for the personal financial gain of Trump and his family at considerable taxpayer expense, stuff like that. We'd have thought that Farenthold and his colleagues would encourage further investigation into the Russian government's actions to disrupt our presidential election and whether Trump or his team colluded — for the good of the country, like Republicans did during Watergate. What Farenthold says is a refusal to cut this president a break is only an effort to find out more information. If the result isn't good for Trump, why is that not on Trump?

It's puzzling that Farenthold would explain away Trump's constitutional-crisis-to-constitutional-crisis performance as a learning curve that's to be expected of someone making the transition "from CEO of a company to CEO of the country." Obama made the leap to president from freshman U.S. senator who had never served in any other federal office. And through all eight years of intense criticism and constant congressional committee investigating, which Farenthold joined in enthusiastically, one complaint we never heard was about Obama's learning curve.

The reason was that, like it or not, and unlike Trump, Obama knew what he was doing. And his opponents knew that he knew. We once heard Farenthold say he wouldn't trust Obama "with two dollars to go to Starbucks," but we never heard him complain of amateurism.

The competence and self-control exhibited by Obama were not rare characteristics of a president. A president, right or wrong, agree or disagree with the policies and pursuits, at least is supposed to know what the hell he's doing. How Trump is being treated in the news is not a reflection of a different, double standard being applied to him because he's Trump and not Obama or Truman. The new, uncharted territory is this curious expectation among Farenthold and others that Trump should be cut a break by anybody.

It's time for Farenthold and the other Trump apologists in his party to drop their shoot-the-messenger pretense and put the blame for Trump's words and actions where it belongs — on Trump. He's where the buck is supposed to stop.